you pay nothing!

There are times when being female here is frustrating, to say the least- when men stare & catcall, when taxi drivers are creepy, when you know that it's most appropriate to wear long sleeves even though it's 95 degrees outside.

There are other times when being female is, well, convenient. Take, for example, picking up a package at the main post office downtown. This afternoon, Ruba and I went to said post office, pick-up slip in hand, to retrieve my package. After being directed upstairs, I showed the slip to the guy near the door, who then directed me to a room (we'll say 'office A') off to the side. After presenting the slip and my ID, the man in office A stamped my slip and gave it to another man, who found the package. Sounds simple, right? I started to open the package and was told that I had to wait for an officer to be there, at which point I looked confused, apologized, and stood there awkwardly with Ruba. The officer came; I opened the package to show him the contents. He gave me another sheet and said something quickly in Arabic; all I caught was 'mudeer' (director/manager). I turned to the first man from office A, who summoned someone else, who directed me out to the main area (we'll say 'office B'). There I found several younger guys (in their late 20s, maybe?) and managed to ask, "wein aruuh helan?" (where do I go now?). One of them showed me which office was the mudeer's (office C); I walked in, smiled sweetly, and said hi. Despite the value of the package from the slip, he just smiled and said, "you pay nothing" and sent me back out. I went back out with Ruba to office B, where I was directed to another man, at whom I smiled sweetly again. He looked at the slip, looked at me, and said JD 1. A note: the Jordanian postal system makes you pay customs on incoming packages. I was supposed to pay a per day for each day that it sat at the post office (totaling about JD 2.30), plus a customs fee based on the value of the package (or the gender and demeanor of the customer lol). I paid JD 1 total- I think they're required to charge me something to say that they did. Anyway, after that, I was sent back to office A, where after waiting for the man there to write something in the log book, I was finally allowed to take my package. Despite there being almost no other customers around, the process took quite a while just due to shuffling from office to office.

Lessons learned:
1. Allow time to pick up packages. I couldn't tell you how the American postal system works, but it seems to be more efficient.
2. Looking confused and lost is not a bad thing in this situation- people were more than happy to direct us.
3. Being female is helpful, since (as far as I could see) all but one of the employees there were male. Smile sweetly and use a lot of polite phrases.

I was totally prepared to try to persuade whomever to lower the customs fee ("I'm a student- I don't have much money! How can I show my family how beautiful Jordan is if I can't use my camera to take pictures?"), but it was not necessary. Being a western-looking woman was enough.

Ruba and I then got lunch and wandered around downtown for a while- such a fun place! I might go back tomorrow afternoon and wander some more. There are so many little back alleys with tons of small shops. A far cry from the new mega-malls of West Amman; this is not a complaint. After that, we returned to my place, made some coffee/tea, and baked magic cookie bars (butter + graham crackers + sweetened condensed milk + coconut + M&Ms). Overall, a really nice day. The post office experience was frustrating as we were walking from office to office, but I just had to laugh at the end. As Ruba's host mother always says when Ruba is frustrated with this culture, "ahlan wa sahlan, welcome to Jordan!"